As we near the release of Heartstopper Season 3 on Thursday, October 3, fans are poring over the trailer and first-look images, creating romantic Charlie-Nick vids, and smattering social media with leaf emojis evoking the artwork from Alice Oseman’s graphic novel.
In the coming-of-age Netflix series’ third season, Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) are finally public with their relationship, though there are still challenges ahead, especially with university looming.
And if you need a refresher on the drama that got us to this point, here’s a rundown of the first two seasons.
Charlie & Nick’s Meet Cute
When the show starts, Charlie and Nick are strangers arbitrarily assigned to sit together at Truham Grammar School for Boys. After they start chatting, Nick invites Charlie to join him on the rugby team, and Charlie accepts.
But Charlie is in a situationship, if you will. He’s secretly hooking up with Ben Hope (Sebastian Croft), who’s a total arse to him when other people are around. Charlie breaks it off with Ben when he sees Ben kissing a girl, and when Ben throws a fit and tries forcibly kissing Charlie, Nick swoops in and shoves Ben away.
As Charlie and Nick get closer, Nick starts realizing he has feelings for Charlie, and he even kisses Charlie at a classmate’s birthday party. But Nick isn’t ready to broadcast their romance — or, for that matter, his bisexuality — and other classmates pressure him into a date with Imogen Heaney (Rhea Norwood), who moons over him. After Nick and Charlie affirm their feelings for each other, though, Nick lets Imogen down gently.
Nick and Charlie arrange a double date with Tara Jones (Corinna Brown) and Darcy Olsson (Kizzy Edgell) — a queer couple at the nearby Higgs Girls School — and the group conspires to make it a triple date by inviting Tao Xu (William Gao), Charlie’s best friend, and their former classmate Elle Argent (Yasmin Finney), who transferred to Higgs after coming out as trans, after Elle lets it slip that she’s crushing on Tao. But Elle catches on the triple-date plot and says she doesn’t want to mess with her and Tao’s friendship.
Then, Nick invites Charlie to the movies with a group of other students, including Ben and a bully named Harry Greene (Cormac Hyde-Corrin). Both Ben and Harry harass Charlie — Ben belittling Charlie and Harry spewing homophobic insults — and Nick intervenes to stop the vile comments. The incident sends Charlie into a tailspin, and he quits the rugby team. Worse yet, Tao is angry with Charlie for not telling him about his romance with Nick. But Nick cheers Charlie up with his plans to come out, and as Season 1 ends, Nick comes out to his mother, Sarah (Olivia Colman), who embraces him.
Nick continues the process as Season 2 starts, coming out to Imogen. Charlie, who rejoins the rugby team, tells his parents about his and Nick’s romance, but his father bars Nick from coming over. And later, after seeing that Charlie’s grades are suffering, Charlie’s parents bar him from visiting Nick at all.
Meanwhile, Tao and Elle are making tentative steps toward a relationship, though Tao has concerns about their prospects when Elle shows interest in attending Lambert School of Art. Speaking of concerns, Nick is dismayed to see Imogen start dating Ben, though he knows he can’t tell her about his qualms without divulging Ben and Charlie’s history and thus outing Ben.
The Paris Class Trip
On a school trip to France, Tao and Elle decide to keep their relationship platonic… until Elle kisses Tao, and he kisses her back. Nick and Charlie’s amour, meanwhile, leads to Charlie getting a hickey on his neck. And Imogen dumps Ben after noticing his fixation on Charlie.
The rest of the trip has its ups and downs, too. After a sudden fainting spell, Charlie tells Nick about his eating disorder. Tara tells Darcy she loves her, but Darcy doesn’t say it back — thought she eventually apologizes and reciprocates the sentiment. James McEwan (Bradley Riches), another classmate, kisses Isaac Henderson (Tobie Donovan), a friend of the group, but Isaac doesn’t seem that into it. The teachers Mr. Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade) and Mr. Farouk (Nima Taleghani) also share a smooch and do seem into it. Nick reunites with his French father, Stéphane (Thibault de Montalembert), and Nick also comes out to a group of classmates during a truth-or-dare game.
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Back in England, Elle gets accepted into Lambert but waffles about whether she’ll go, Isaac realizes he’s asexual, and Charlie shoots down an apology from Ben. And Nick and Charlie’s families get together for what turns out to be a disastrous dinner, in which Nick lashes out at his older brother, David (Jack Barton), for being a bully, and dad Stéphane for being absent for much of his life. Nick also lets Stéphane know that Charlie is his boyfriend. Before he leaves to go back to France, Stéphane tells Nick he likes Charlie.
Where Season 2 Left Off
And in the Season 2 finale, Nick makes his and Charlie’s romance Instagram-official, Elle decides to go to Lambert and to be Tao’s girlfriend, Darcy opens up about her homophobic mother to Tara, and Charlie opens up about his past bullying-induced self-harm to Nick, who makes him promise to let him know if his stress ever reaches that point again. And as he heads home in the closing moments of the season, Charlie considers texting Nick “I love you.”
Heartstopper Season 3, Thursday, October 3, Netflix
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